Indonesia: Life In The Islands

Joining the Motorcycle Gang?

Day 2 of school today and I watched two more classes. Thankfully, the first one didn't start until 8:15, so I could sleep in another two hours. The students in the second class were extremely talkative and spoke excellent English--even when they whispered in the back they were doing it in English. Halfway through, Bu Moridiati decided to tell me the history of SMA 3. Apparently during WWII when the Japanese took over Indonesia from the Dutch, the school had been a prison for Dutch soldiers. A camera crew from Jakarta had come to Malang the year before to film a documentary about the ghosts that still haunted the building. Then the girl next to me motioned toward the red and beige tiled floor. "That is the red from the arm," she said, pointing at the red splotches and making a slashing motion across her wrist. Oh right...blood. I looked closer at the floor and realized that it had originally been beige, but was now covered with the remnants of blood stains. Bu Moridiati just laughed and said they 'couldn't be sure' that those were blood stains, and then the class continued. But the more I looked, the more it sure looked like blood to me...

I had mentioned to Suharyadi that I wanted to ride a bike to school instead of take a taxi when I wanted to sleep in. I very clearly said sepeda, the word for bicycle. But I guess he heard sepeda motor, because around 10 he and Pak Tedy took me to the Honda dealership to look at motorcycles. In Indonesia, motorbikes outnumber cars and buses about 5 to 1. They can snake around traffic and pedestrians--more than once I had to jump off the sidewalk in Jakarta because motorcycles were using it as another lane during rush hour. I would NEVER ride a motorcycle there. But here, it really seems to be the only way to get anywhere quickly and inexpensively. Mikrolets are cheap, but can take triple the time. Taxis should be cheap, but I've found that they charge a minimum price of Rp20,000 for foreigners and refuse to turn on their meters. The bikes at the Honda dealership were smaller--not like Harleys or anything. They were about half the size and more like mopeds. They're also 1/3 of the price they are in the US, and when I leave I could resell it for 75% of the original value. A nice little blue bike caught my eye, but I decided I should probably learn how to drive a motorcycle before I invest in one...
So later that day I tested that waters. I went to visit Layne's house for the first time and took an odessey across Malang. Two mikrolets got me about a kilometer away from her house with no idea how to get to ikan nus 2. I waved my piece of paper with the address at men who were sitting and eating meat off bones of some sort. They offered me a becak (like a riskshaw except the 'driver' pedals you forward instead of runs) or the back of a motorcycle. I very bravely chose the bike.
Now I don't know proper motorcycle riding etiquette, but I'm pretty sure clutching one shoulder as hard as I can and screaming "pelan, pelan!" (slow, slow!) at the top of my lungs is not it. We were literally going so slow that the motorcyle was wavering from side to side and we could barely maintain our forward momentum. It ended up taking us almost 10 minutes to ride the one kilometer to Layne's house. She was sitting on her steps as we putted past at about 3/km per hour. I wish she had taken a picture.
We were feeling brave, so then Layne's neighbor and fellow St. Yousef teacher, Win Swastika (yes, that is his actual family name) went and got his mother's motorcycle to give us a taste. I managed to get on and putt forward and around a turn on my first try; I almost felt like this could be something I would be able to handle. Full of hubris I climbed off--except I had forgotten to put down the kickstand and the weight of the bike knocked me over into the dirt. I can just see that happening at an intersection in Malang in front of rush hour traffic. People think we are odd enough as it is!
So enough about motorcycles. I went to lunch with Pak Tedy and Suharyadi after scoping out the bikes, and there I made two grave errors:
1) I drank a delicious mixture made of coconut slices and some other liquid I assumed was coconut milk. Halfway through the meal Suharyadi informed me that they don't have coconut milk here and it was just water with the fruit slices. I saw the tap they were getting the water out of, and I feel confident in saying I now probably have about 1,354,345 parasites.
2) I made a joke about how I wished I had a uniform so I didn't have to buy new school clothes. It was OBVIOUSLY a joke, I said I wanted to wear a little tie and maybe some knee highs. Everyone laughed, it was a JOKE. But I guess some subtleties of my humor were lost in translation, because when I got out of my final class this afternoon Suharyadi came up to me with a big smile and told me Principal Tri was so happy I had decided to wear a uniform. I could have the same one the other women were wearing. Another teacher sitting nearby commented that I would look beautigul in the uniform. False. The fabric is a heninous shade of green that will only make me look jaundiced and the cut is extemely unflaterring (which I suppose is the point). I did manage to leverage my extreme height compared to the other teachers and extract a promise that I could visit a tailor and have it fitted to my body. I wasn't particularily pleased this afternoon about the situation, but the fact that everyone was SO happy about my wanting to wear a uniform gives rise to two conspiracy theories:
Either:
1) My outfits the first few days were assaults to good taste and decency and demand I be given more structure concerning my clothing choices, or
2) They secretly wanted me to wear a uniform all along but didn't want to offend me, and by offering to wear one I look like a team player.
I like to believe #2.

posted by Caitlin @ 10:27 PM